Patience Is a Virtue

Source: Denny Franzkowiak / Pixabay

I want to share an interesting story that happened to me recently. One of the biggest television events that happens every year in the U.S. is called the Super Bowl. I don’t watch a lot of sports, but I try to watch the Super Bowl every year.

Well, I have a relative in her 80s who lives in Arizona and doesn’t go out much. I asked her to come and spend some time with me. She also has a relative, also in her 80s, who lives about 2 hours from me. I took her there to visit. Thankfully, both wanted to watch the Super Bowl with me.

We discovered that she had a television and she had cable, but she had never used either. I had to figure out how to make that television work so we could watch the Super Bowl.

Well, we arrived well before the Super Bowl started, so I had ample time to figure out how to make the television work. I worked on it for quite a while but couldn’t get it to work. She lives in a retirement community with free cable, but she doesn’t have a cable box.

Thankfully, she had an app called Paramount. I have a membership to Paramount, so I decided to use my account. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my password. I went through repeated attempts to retrieve my password and ran into many other complications.

After a long series of trial and error, I got it working, but it was already within the second quarter of the game. I thought I would figure it out sooner or later, but what was interesting was the comments of these two ladies in their 80s. They both said that they couldn’t believe how patient I was. They said that they would have given up long ago.

Their comments surprised me. My patience did pay off, but I didn’t feel like I was being patient. I wasn’t thinking about being impatient about what I was missing. I was focused on finding a resolution.

The virtue of patience

Patience is a virtue because it cultivates inner strength and sound judgment. In a world that often feels rushed and demanding, the ability to wait calmly and tolerate delays really empowers us to make clear-headed decisions. Patience helps us avoid acting out of frustration or anger, thus preventing us from making hasty choices that could have negative consequences.

With patience, we’re able to navigate challenges with a level head. It helps us to focus on long-term goals rather than short-term setbacks. Patience fosters resilience. When things don’t go according to plan, patience gives us the strength and determination to remain optimistic. Cultivating patience allows us to appreciate the process of growth and helps us handle adversity with grace. This promotes greater peace and contentment.

Here are a few examples:

In life, we have plans, and we expect them to go a certain way. Life may have other plans.

We may be in a loving relationship, even married to someone, and expect to live our lives with them. One day, this might change. The relationship can end. And if we are hasty, we may say something hurtful or do something harmful to ourselves, like addictions to numb the pain. If we practice patience, we can say, “OK, this is not what I expected, but what are my choices?”

When we’re patient, we can ask questions about the relationship’s end. And even more importantly, we can ask ourselves what we need to do in the present moment. The next day, we ask that same question, and so forth. The main thing that patience provides for us is the ability to deal with the present.

If we’re diagnosed with cancer, we can research and discover the best options to treat the cancer. If our children go down a frightening path, we can respond in ways that help support them and create healthy relationships. With patience, we take one thing at a time.

When I was fixing the television, I wasn’t thinking about how much of the game I was missing. I was focused on how to make things work, considering all the options. With patience, we focus on the present.

That is the beauty of patience.

Patience may not always give us what we want. But we can remain calm, peaceful, and happy regardless. Not only was I trying to get the television to work, but I was also spending time with family and friends. Patience plays its most important role in our interactions with people. With patience, we don’t lash out at people. We work on gathering more information and looking for a solution instead.

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Patience and gratitude

Another important key to patience is gratitude. Instead of focusing on what we want right now, we focus on being grateful for what we already have.

A study about finances and patience was published in the Journal of Psychological Science. What researchers discovered was that feelings of gratitude automatically reduce financial impatience. The researchers talked about how the inability to resist temptations revealed a host of problems ranging from credit card debt and inadequate savings to unhealthy eating and even drug addiction.

Researchers found that the degree of patience exhibited was directly related to the amount of gratitude an individual felt.

Gratitude is a beautiful emotion.

When we are grateful for what we have, we improve our ability to be patient. If we agree that patience is a virtue, we must realize that life changes. If we resist these changes, we suffer. That suffering creates more impatience. But if you accept that one of the guarantees of life is change, you will relax.

Patience is being present, examining your options, and working to move forward. If things work out, then great. But if they don’t, then we try something else. It’s just that simple.

There is so much good in developing the virtue of patience. It takes work, it takes effort, but there are so many benefits of developing patience. With patience, you will find that life flows more beautifully each day.